Killers picks up right where Iron Maiden left off–indeed many of these songs were written at the same time as the first album. The difference is new guitarist Adrian Smith.

It opens with the great (but simple) instrumental “Ides of March” which segues into the blistering “Wrathchild.” And it’s on this song that you can tell some of the rawness has been removed from the recording. The guitars sound a wee bit more polished.

And you can tell the band are getting a bit more symphonic with the bass harmonics that intro the wonderful “Murders in the Rue Morgue” a song that feels long but actually isn’t. It has several parts that all seem to signal the end until Clive Burrs drums come pounding in to restart the song. Very cool. “Another Life” is another fast punky song, and while I like it, it is probably one of the weaker songs on the album. But that’s okay because it is followed by one of Maidens greatest instrumentals–“Genghis Khan” which has beautiful symphonic soaring solos over a cool propulsive beat.

“Innocent Exile” opens with another great noisy slappy bass riff that only Harris was doing at the time. “Killers” is a classic track: fast and yet complex, with a very cool riff. “Twilight Zone” sees Di’Anno reaching for higher more operatic notes. He makes it, but you can just tell that the band needs more from their vocalist. “Prodigal Son” opens with a pretty acoustic guitar intro. I used to like this song quite a bit (whatever Lamia is), but I can see that it’s actually quite long and meandering (maybe this one is more like “War Pigs”). It’s pretty but could probably be a bit shorter. “Purgatory” sounds like track off the first album–fast raw and punky with screaming riffs. “Drifter” ends the disc with a cool bass line and some more thrashing. It’s a solid ending for an album that overall works pretty well, but which kind of shows that the band had to either do something big on the next album or get stuck in a rut.

[READ: June 1, 2013] McSweeney’s #43

And with this issue I am almost all caught up with my McSweeney’s. More impressively, I read this one only a few days after receiving it!

This issues comes with two small books. And each book has a very cool fold-out/die cut cover (which is rather hard to close and which I was sure would get caught and therefore ripped on something but which hasn’t yet). The first is a standard collection of letters and stories and the second is a collection of fiction from South Sudan. Jointly they are a great collection of fiction and nonfiction, another solid effort from McSweeney’s.